The gardening story of this Olympics understandably gets relegated due to the magnificent performance of athletic endeavours.

But, for me, one of the shining stars has been the meadow that garlands the banks of the river Lea in the Olympic Park, a speckled mass of cornflowers, marigolds, Californian poppies and coreopsis.

Meadow planting has been popular for more than 20 years.

This one was designed by international wildflower expert Prof Nigel Dunnett from the University of Sheffield. I would award it a gold.

Meadows can be complicated.

They conjure an image of relaxed, almost lazy gardening but, to achieve a well-balanced one that provides enough colour and enough diversity of plants and flowers, they need planning and a specific soil. For an overview, I am going to talk about three ways of achieving either great meadows or the look of a meadow.

The first one is the easiest. Don’t cut your lawn and see what happens. Let the grass grow and flower. It can be beautiful from spring to early summer.

At home I have an area around some apple, pear and cherry trees and I just cut a pathway through mixed common grass pastures, a swathe if you like. It doesn’t produce a huge amount of colour but it’s beautiful.

Children love walking on a closely mown pathway through grass that grows up to 2ft. You are providing a haven for insects.

Be careful, though – if you want to return this area to a sparkling beautiful lawn it can take a lot of work.

For a wildflower meadow, sow seeds during March and April or even in September for next spring.

For this you need to prepare your seed bed as you would for any sowing – remove weeds and stones and rake to a fine tilth.

Scatter your seed and rake in lightly and water. You can get different mixes depending on the fertility of your soil.

For rich soils, consider poppies, marigolds and cornflowers. In poorer soils, perennials are less likely to be overcrowded by grasses.

Where grasses are outcompeting with flowers, introduce a semi-parasitic plant such as Rhinanthus minor, known as yellow rattle, which reduces the vigour of grassland plantings.

It breaks its mixes down into sections – some that are suitable for chalk or limestone soils, others that work on dry, sandy and loam mixes, meadows that will grow on heavy clay soils and others for hedgerow and lightly shaded areas.

The one I am trying from its collection is the cornfield annual mixture, which contains six species including campion, white chamomile and also corn marigold.

The third way is the quick and easy way – use a MeadowMat. Here you will get 34 species of perennial British native wildflowers and grasses in rolls of turf that just need rolling out and can be done at any time of the year.

In terms of ongoing maintenance, meadows don’t require feeding but they will need an annual cut once they have set seed.

You may also need occasionally to weed out the undesirables such as dandelions and docks.

Meadows are a delight – full of colour from spring through summer, essentially British.

They do need planning but are full of rewards.

From a gardener’s point of view, the real legacy of the Olympics will be these wonderful gardens that will be open to the public next year.